A Hoa Phat steel mill in the northern province of Hải Dương. The company shares dragged the construction materials index down 0.6 per cent on Friday morning. — VNA/VNS Photo Danh Lam

Viet Nam’s benchmark VN-Index inched down on Friday morning, dragged by even stronger selling than the previous day.

The VN-Index on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange fell 0.09 per cent to close at 1,023.12 points.

It lost the same rate on Thursday.

More than 81.3 million shares were traded on the southern bourse, worth VND1.8 trillion (US$77.4 million).

Selling pressure mounted on some large-cap stocks and pulled the market down.

Thirteen of the 30 largest stocks by market capitalisation and trading liquidity in the VN30 basket declined.

Among large-cap decliners were steel producer Hoa Phat (HPG), property firm Vincom Retail (VRE), Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BID) and retailer Mobile World Investment (MWG).

Those stocks made the banking, retail, real estate and building material industry indices drop between 0.1 per cent and 0.6 per cent, data on vietstock.vn showed.

Cash was running into mid-cap and small-cap stocks, boosting the two indices up 0.09 per cent and 0.11 per cent.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index gained 0.43 per cent to end at 107.35 points.

The northern market index had gained total 1.6 per cent since last Friday.

Nearly 23 million shares were traded on the northern bourse, worth VND225.3 billion.

The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. — VNS